The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Disdain for the Romantics

Summary: An early-marked enemy of the Romantic Movement, Twain went to work writing Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885, and spent many years of his life trying his best to write in a realist fashion. His fear of converting to Romanticism drove him to set his book aside for over three years as he debated what to do with his characters, who were drawing deeper and deeper into unknown territory for their creator.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Disdain for the Romantics

The Romantic Movement was a byproduct of transcendentalism, which took America and flourished most strongly in New England between 1836 and 1860. It developed as a resistance to the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church. During that same time period, the Realist Movement arose to counter-act Romanticism. A champion of the realists was Mark Twain. Twain was born in the year before the Romantic storm and grew up in the superfluous writings of the romantics. An early-marked enemy of the Romantic Movement, Twain went to work writing Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885, and spent many years of his life trying his best to write in a realist fashion. His fear of converting to Romanticism drove him to set his book aside for over three years as he debated what to do...